STEDMAN, James (c.1622-1701), of Lincoln’s Inn.

Stidmans and Normans were living in the tithing of Ashwick in 1581, when the wealthiest, John Stidman, was assessed at £6 16s for the subsidy.14Two Tudor Subsidy Assessments, ed. A.J. Webb (Som. Rec. Soc. lxxxviii), 49. At the heralds’ visitation of Somerset in 1672, the MP’s elder brother George claimed that their father had been a gentleman, but in his will of 1626 the latter had described himself as a yeoman.15PROB11/149/429. It was a namesake who died a few months afterwards leaving only daughters who was designated ‘gentleman’ of Ashwick.16PROB11/151/424. It seems evident that the brothers, left fatherless in their childhood with modest inheritances, made common cause and successfully established themselves, the elder as a wealthy landowner and entrepreneur, the younger perhaps first as an attorney, and certainly later as a prosperous lawyer. This appears attributable partly to mercantile connections, and partly to beneficial links with some important Presbyterian leaders in the 1640s and 1650s.

George Stidman the elder, whose overseers included a kinsman and namesake from Bristol, had himself bought leases to add to the £270 in cash divided among his four children.17PROB11/149/429. Neither son attended university or did recorded service in the parliamentarian army and both married first in their early twenties, suggesting some engagement in trade or a minor profession to generate additional income. It is conceivable, in view of later events, that George the younger’s eldest daughter Martha was the girl of that name and parentage baptized in 1647 (following an identical entry in 1643) at the godly bastion of St Stephen, Coleman Street, London.18St Stephen, Coleman Street, London par. reg.; Vis. Som. and Bristol 1672, 56. James, meanwhile, was living in the parish of St Andrew, Holborn: his daughters Grace and Martha were baptized there in July 1648 and April 1650.19St Andrew, Holborn par. reg. They and their elder sister Mary, described as aged 19 in 1665, were the daughters of Mary, who was almost certainly a close relative of the Presbyterian MP Zouche Tate* of Delapré Abbey, Northamptonshire.20London Mar. Lics. ed Foster, 1315. Mary, wife of James, was buried at the Tates’ parish church in 1658; James’s will mentions a nephew, James Tate.21Baker, Northants. i. 362; PROB11/460/132.

From 1649 George Stedman was regularly nominated a commissioner in Somerset.22A. and O. Two years earlier he had become lord of the manor at Edson and at Midsomer Norton, especially Downside, which he made his main (comfortable) residence; by 1652 he was operating a coal mine at Ashwick.23Somerset RO., DD/HI/A/124, 134, 196, 203; Som. and Dorset N and Q xxvi. 154. One of George’s colleagues in local government and a fellow native of Stratton, Lislebone Long*, a Presbyterian survivor of Pride’s Purge, may plausibly have influenced the belated entry in April 1649 to Lincoln’s Inn (where Long was a well-regarded barrister) of James Stedman, ‘gentleman’.24LI Admiss. i. 260. At the inn James also had some contact with another Somerset magistrate, John Harington I*.25Harington Diary, 74. James may have been acting as an attorney in the county before he was called to the bar in February 1656 and he was present in Wells as an elector at the polls on 20 August.26Som. Assize Orders 1640-59, 76-7; LI Black Bks. ii. 411. He was also building up a much wider practice.27Sheffield Archives, BFM/991, 992; Bucks. RO, D/LE/3/49. The following June he was named a commissioner to survey Kingswood forest in Staffordshire.28A. and O.

Professional, geographical and religious threads probably entwine to explain Stedman’s election to the 1659 Parliament as a Member for Chippenham. His partner Edward Hungerford* of Farleigh in Somerset and Corsham in Wiltshire, whose family had traditionally occupied one of the seats there, was at this juncture probably a Presbyterian who sought a conservative political settlement. That was certainly the stance of Edward’s uncle, Henry Hungerford*, the Lincoln’s Inn lawyer who sat for nearby Great Bedwyn. Whatever his stance, however, Stedman appears to have made no recorded contribution to proceedings in the Commons.

Named as an assessment and a militia commissioner in the early months of 1660, James Stedman continued to prosper after the Restoration.29A. and O. At his brother’s death in 1687 a much enhanced Somerset estate went – by means of a notably pious will – to the latter’s last wife, a daughter of Robert Long II*, and to his daughters and their sons, with nothing reverting to James as their father had originally intended in such a case.30PROB11/389/116. But James was evidently well set up on his own account. The marriage in 1665 of his eldest daughter Mary to Zouche Tate’s son perpetuated that connection.31London Mar. Lics. ed Foster, 1315. With land in both counties, Stedman was a poll tax commissioner in Somerset and a commissioner for the rebuilding of Northampton; he also eventually held high office at his inn.32SR; LI Black Bks. iii. 87, 110, 118, 124, 128, 134, 157. Having outlived two or three wives, he died in 1701, requesting to be buried without pomp at ‘Ridge’ or in the chapel of his inn, depending on his place of death. His will acknowledged the importance to him of collegiate life and indicated a close association with other lawyers, especially William Bonner, who had married one of his granddaughters. He desired that his nephew James Tate be admitted to his chambers and left to his youngest grandson James Tate, who was also his residuary legatee, his books and manuscripts.33PROB11/460/132. None of his grandsons entered Parliament.